


fall like a thunderbolt

by capra



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 4cc2020, Long Distance Boyfriends, M/M, SEIMEI - Freeform, Soft af, also would you like to know how many feelings i have about nathan's career?, ballade no 1, he tries not to but he does, nathan worries about yuzu, of a sort, prayerfic, you will find out some of them today, zuzuthan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22571194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra
Summary: The whole skating world is wondering what Yuzu's *really* thinking, bringing back Seimei and Ballade.Nathan's trying *not* to think about it. Therefore, he's thinking about it a lot.*A response to Yuzu's announcement ahead of 4CC 2020, and to Nathan's Spotify activity on the day the news dropped.
Relationships: Nathan Chen/Yuzuru Hanyu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	fall like a thunderbolt

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely connected to the _["live with me forever (but not for long)"](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1310987)_ series i'm cowriting with chupacabra, this is a truly stream of consciousness unstructured mess of fic introspection. A sort of prayerfic for 4CC and the rest of the season (aka Worlds).
> 
> unbeta'd
> 
> title and epigraph are taken from Sun Tzu's Art of War.

*

_“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, **fall like a thunderbolt.** ”_

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

*

He gets asked if 'he's heard the news' at least three times through the early morning, before enough time has passed on the East Coast that his friends assume he's been awake long enough that yeah, he knows already, and he doesn't need to be told. _Ballade No. 1_ is back. _Ballade No. 1,_ and _Seimei,_ are back. And will remain 'back' for the rest of the season.

Through Worlds.

Nathan's doing a lot of mental math about why that might be. _Ballade_ was the short program that Yuzu brought back to get him through his biggest injury, the one that made people question him: whether he _would_ ever skate again at his previous level; whether he _could_ skate well enough for the Olympics; whether he was through; etcetera, etctera. But that was then. Now? Well, he's read the interview answers, and he doesn't think that Ghislain or Yuzu or Brian are _lying_ about it. But of course he still wonders. There's truth to tell reporters, and truth to whisper privately. Nathan wants to know what those whispers would be.

Not that he will be able to get an answer out of Yuzu about it for another couple months. Yuzu stops answering calls sometimes, and he sometimes doesn't even text back when he's feeling very pressured by the nearness of a comp, and they both have an understanding, above and beyond that, about keeping work information and personal information separate. So getting a conversation with him this week has not been easy, and when it has happened, they've stuck to comforting, safe, not-skating topics, like that _Havenly has a new confection and do you think it'd survive the trip to Toronto, you have to try it,_ and _we have good bakeries in Toronto! Order me something from them instead,_ and _that's not the point - I mean, yes, I will, but - I want you to try THIS one._

Because, curiosity aside, how can Nathan ask what Yuzu's up to with this? His next comp after this is Worlds. And they're both looking forward, personally, to the aftermath, but beforehand? If there's any point in the season in which they're truly enemies, this is it. Nathan can't ask Yuzu about his strategy, about his reasons; whatever they are, physical or tactical or mental or practical or psychological, Yuzu's not going to share them, and Nathan not only shouldn't ask, but _doesn't want to._ They both get ruthless, in their own ways, but Yuzu's way is straight up Sun Tzu, Art Of War, snappy and stonewalling any curiosity, and Nathan's the strongest opponent Yuzu faces (other than Yuzu himself, and really that's the larger part, but facing Nathan requires Yuzu to have mastered facing himself, and that's where it all gets twisty and last time they really got into it, Yuzu talked about snakes eating their tails, and got really frustrated, and punched the hotel pillows).

So: Nate's worried, on a boyfriend level. He's curious, on a competitive level. And he's empathetic, on a personal level, because revisiting a program with that much emotional momentum to it has to be a decision that wasn't lightly made, and whether or not Yuzu's thinking about why he brought it back last time, he's surely thinking about where _it_ brought _him_ last time, and using that energy, and squaring up to face his last remaining gap in his collection of gold.

Nathan's glad he's not at 4CC, and at the same time he regrets not going. Screw school - shouldn't he have taken this chance to face Yuzu again? They get precious few opportunities as it is. There's a lot of Nathan that likes to say "screw it!" and that's the part that makes him throw the 5th or 6th quad, or kiss the boy, or make the phone call he never planned to. But that part didn't get let off its leash, because saying screw it for 4CC could lead to him exhausted for Worlds. And Worlds is - well, if he doesn't bring his A-game to Worlds, Yuzu might eventually forgive him, but he won't forgive himself. (And besides, he's still recovering from the flu, so he couldn't kiss Yuzu even if he was in Seoul anyway.)

(Not that it's _entirely_ about the kissing part of things.)

(But it's not _not_ , either.)

So that part of Nathan stews and sulks, feeling frustrated, and he listens to _his_ Chopin. Not _Ballade No. 1,_ but _Piano Concerto No. 1_. He used it in his last fully junior season. That was the season that Yuzu first introduced his _Ballade,_ the season that he began his reign as _Olympic Gold Medalist._ Hazily, Nathan still remembers what the world looked like back then. Things seemed simpler then, more straightforward. He was fifteen, and 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed' couldn't have been more apt. With two international seasons under his belt, he remembers feeling like the world was assembling itself just outside his door, ready for him to explore it. He'd been to a few countries, imagined going to a dozen more. He remembers envisioning competitions like lily pads: hopping from one to the next, he could cross vast distances as easily as jumping a toeloop. He daydreamed about using each success to springboard himself to the next one, until he would someday face _Yuzuru Hanyu, Olympic Champion_ , and defeat him. Take his crown. Yuzuru would congratulate him, shake his hand, tell him how impressed he was. Nathan would be gracious, deferential, and super freaking awesome. He'd get so many girlfriends.

God, he'd been such a _kid_.

The world is nothing like he'd envisioned it to be. Competitions are indeed lily pads, but lily pads buckle and sink, dropping you into the water if you land too close to the edges. Nathan remembers a statistic that was hammered into his head during driving classes: fifty-two percent of car accidents happen within five miles of your own home. Seventy-seven percent within fifteen miles of home. And only fifteen percent of fatal crashes occur at intersections, due to interaction with other drivers. The other eighty-five percent of the time, you're just fucking yourself over.

Close to home, huh?

He's made a point not to listen to _Dream On_ since his accident at US Nationals. Even though the PA operator killed the song before it got too far in, Nathan still flinches every time he hears it. He can't do anything about it in public, but thankfully, the song's not a super popular choice for canned radio. And in private, well, it's just on his Spotify banned list, and that's enough. He's only ever gotten cornered about it once - at a party - and he does his best not to think about that, either. It's completely illogical, but some part of himself still blames _himself_ for the injury - if he'd trained better, or just hadn't had weak bones. It makes no sense, and he knows that, and he still can't fully banish the thought.

So all of that means that he knows from personal experience how thorny the brain gets as you try to move on. From an injury, from a failed expectation. It's an unruly weaselly mess, and Nathan's has five years less material to beat him up with; a hundred fewer stalking incidents; half a decade less of national and international pressure.

But he's got five years less experience than Yuzu has, too. Five years fewer victories, and defeats, and _practice_ dealing with the imperfect. Dealing with how to keep going, when the great plan didn't work out the way you planned it. He's managed it, himself, and he counts two of those instances as the 'big ones' - the injury, and Pyeongchang. He managed it - more than managed, came back with a vengeance, with a winning streak, with certainty in who he is and what he wants.

He's still not completely sure how he managed it, looking back. He certainly couldn't plan ahead to repeat the feat now. It came from his gut, from his soul, and it carried him through, as much as he carried himself. (Maybe more.) He'd _like_ to know how to do that on command, but he doesn't. He'd like to know he won't have any need to again - but that's not going to happen, either. There _will_ be a lily pad in the future that falls out from under him. He's working on accepting that. On knowing he can't know when it will come. He struggles with that. And that's the point - he knows that he's still inexperienced, comparatively speaking. There's still so much more he wants to learn.

Some of the specific lessons Yuzu's learned, Nathan hasn't yet, and strongly hopes he will never have to. But that means that he doesn't know, _can't_ know, what Yuzu's feeling. What calculations he's doing in his head. It means that Nathan knows that everything he sees - or fears he sees - in Yuzu's decisions is colored by his own experiences. It's not based on Yuzu's experience, Yuzu's rationale. Nathan's fears are Nathan's own. And he's _got_ to keep from projecting those onto Yuzu. God knows he gets enough of that as it is.

So he's not going to presume anything about the rationale behind what Yuzu's doing. Or not doing. There's no way to know, far too many variables to address. Even as his boyfriend, he'd still only be blindly throwing darts. He'll find out the full truth from Yuzu, later. After the season. Til then, the best he can do is stay focused. On his school, on his own training, on their shared goal. On making it to Worlds: healthy, ready. It's going to be the same fight, even though now he'll face _Ballade_ and _Seimei_ instead of _Otonal_ and _Origin_. Half the battle happens in his own head, and half in Yuzu's.

Yuzu has 4CC. Nathan has classes. He's not going to make assumptions. He's not going to speculate. He's not going to get on his stealth account and start digging for practice reports and over-analyze video and worry himself into a knot, wondering what that ankle is doing, what that knee is doing, what that mind is doing. He's _not_.

He's not.

*

**Author's Note:**

> “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
> 
> ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War 
> 
> *
> 
> I want to thank everyone who's left recent kudos, comments, and bookmarks on my fics. I've been feeling pretty discouraged of late, and you've all kept me going. Thank you. I hope to upload more soon. 


End file.
